World Business

Watch original video:

President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the antitrust division at the U.S. Department of Justice isn’t interested in Microsoft, according to comments she made last summer. “For me, Microsoft is in this way in conclusion century. They are not the enigma,” Christine Varney said during a June 19 American Antitrust Institute panel agitation, according to Bloomberg. The U.S. good husbandry will “continually see a puzzle — potentially by Google” because it already “has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising,” she uttered.

Todd Bishop at TechFlash udder up the audio recording of the termination and transcribed the entire passage:

“If somewhat of my colleagues or friends from Google, or who represent Google, are in this place, I invite you to hop up and yell and howl at me. For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem. I think we’re going to continually to see a problem, potentially, with Google, who I think thus far has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising lawfully. I do not think they have done anything other than be a spectacular, innovative guests. I’m deeply troubled by their acquisition of DoubleClick, and I’m deeply troubled by their deal with Yahoo. I submit to you that this administration, although they may open a inquiry or a review of the Google-Yahoo deal, will do nothing. I think this is a classic area to explore, how do you lay upon Section 2 in a highly innovative, highly networked, not terribly competitive environment.”

As Bishop points disclosed, the Bush Administration did indeed have a problem through the Google-Yahoo deal out, promising an investigation that ultimately stifled it.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that a small search engine startup, TradeComet, is suing Google on antitrust grounds. And the startup has retained outside lawyers who also represent Microsoft’session Online Services Group — though Microsoft is not providing support for the suit and was not aware of it prior to its filing. More onward the complaint from WSJ:

“The antitrust complaint argues that Google tried to exclude vertical search engines like TradeComet’s SourceTool from its search ad market to ’subdue by famine nascent competition.’ In particular, Google ‘manipulated its auctions so that SourceTool faced very greatly higher prices to acquire search traffic,’ according to the complaint, filed in U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York.”

TradeComet is being represented by the agency of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. A Google spokesman told the Journal it had not reviewed the complaint yet, but called the online advertising place of traffic “highly competitive.”

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/02/18/microsoft_news_roundup_obamas_antitrust_nominee_ca.html

Watch original video:

After three straight months of declining video game corbel sales, Sony is hoping to start 2009 by a bang as unit of the most-anticipated titles for the PlayStation 3 hits stores Feb. 27. With “Killzone 2,” the company hopes to showcase the power of its game cheer and take some momentum away from Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

“Killzone 2″ is a first-person shooter, exclusive to the PS3, that wowed the assembled video game press when Sony showed a brief trim from the game at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in 2005. Los Angeles Times game reviewer Pete Metzger described the debut in his K2 review today: “The short video, presented without explanation, was one amazing futuristic war game with visuals that exceeded anything that could be done at the time. Quite of itself, we couldn’privately put confidence in our eyes; there was no highway a game could have an air that good.”

Peter Dille, senior error president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment America, said “that infamous trailer got a lot of people talking about not only ‘Killzone,’ boundary the power of the PS3. Since that time, ‘Killzone’ has gone through kind of a roller-coaster ride from a public understanding perspective … Would it absolutely deliver on that promise?”

He pointed to the game’s Metacritic score — 92 aloud of 100 after 54 reviews — in the same manner with evidence that the game is meeting or exceeding the high expectations suit because it.

“We think this is going to be a nice hardware mover for us and veritably get the year off to a exact start,” Dille said in an conference this morning, adding that the company expects the 2009 games extended mark up to “generate new found momentum behind the PlayStation 3.”

Hardware sales

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launched a year ahead of the PlayStation 3. But the follow-up to the record-selling PlayStation 2 has been unable to unite the gap in console sales in this manner far. The Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 in the U.S. in 13 of the last 18 months. (Although the Nintendo Wii has outsold as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but of them combined in 11 of the last 18 months.) And in the 2008 holiday season — a critical dot for the video games perseverance — Sony saw PS3 sales in the U.S. declension compared with 2007, according to the NPD Group.

Dille pointed out that the PlayStation brand, including the last-generation PS2 and the PlayStation Portable, was, in aggregate, No. 2 at retail in 2008. The PS3 is on track with Sony’session goals, he added.

“We were tracking real issue against the 360 until they made their price drop down to $199, stripped out the hard-drive, and offered that [Arcade] unit,” Dille declared. “And obviously in this economy, that offering resonated with folks.”

He said the busy vigor, in 2008, was driven by the Nintendo Wii — “appealing to a different section of the market” — and Microsoft’s price cut.

“We’ll play those cards at the as it should be regulate for us,” he said.

Anticipated titles

Microsoft has several in a high degree. anticipated and exclusive titles coming for the Xbox 360 this year, too. “Halo Wars,” a strategetics based riff on the space combat series that made the Xbox, is due out March 3 from Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios. Another “Halo” denomination, “Halo 3 ODST,” (for Orbital Drop Shock Trooper — a class of soldier in the game), is coming in Fall from Kirkland-based Bungie Studios.

Excitement over the pair “Killzone 2″ and “Halo Wars” has pointed in recent weeks, according to Gamefly, a game rental service that tracks titles in its customers’ rental queues as a proxy for the most-anticipated titles. “Killzone 2″ was the first PS3 exclusive to hit the top of the list, toward the week ended Feb. 9, but “Halo Wars” took the utmost degree note for the week ended Feb. 16. Sony, meanwhile, has seen the strongest pre-sales in favor of “Killzone 2″ of any first-party game beneficial to PS3.

‘Horsepower under the hood’

Dille said “Killzone” does things with the PS3 that other titles haven’t yet done.

The game is huge — 40 gigabytes — something possible because of the PS3’s Blu-ray Disc drive. That allowed developer Guerrilla Games to pack more graphical detail into the game. And the graphics aren’t diminished during multi-player playing for money, Dille said. The artificial intelligence of the enemies is better and more sophisticated and there are more levels of difficulty.

But Dille still sees much to a greater degree for game developers to do on the comfort.

“There’sitting no wont [’Killzone’] is taking it to its full potential. … The PS3 is a surpassingly deep ocean and folks are in reality still only scratching the surface,” he said.

“The PlayStation 3 just had its second birthday,” Dille continued. “[Microsoft] is further into their cycle. But, we’re couple years into what we always talked about as a 10-year cycle and PlayStation has always had a mouthful of a deeper learning curve because there’s more horsepower under the hood — I think that was true of PS2, it’s certainly true of PS3 — so this is not the end of what you’ll see from PS3 by the agency of some means.”

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/02/18/sony_readies_playstation_3_push_with_much-anticipa.html

Watch original video:

The death of a 16-year-old girl in a Fort Lewis barracks is triggering a wide-ranging review of post policies that should have prevented her from entering the troops’ living quarters.

Those policies allow barracks avenue only when a minor is accompanied by a legal defender, according to a Fort Lewis spokesman. That did not appear to have happened Sunday when the sophomore from Lakes High School in Lakewood was found dead along with a second 16-year-old girl who remains hospitalized.

The Army is investigating whether alcohol or drugs may have been involved, but a cause of death has not be released by Fort Lewis officials.

The occurrence is being viewed by many as a wake-up exclaim at a post where more say there is a long annals of underage girls flocking to party through soldiers.

“The command is taking this event very seriously,” related Joe Piek, a Fort Lewis spokesman. “If changes destitution to have being made to the policies, that may betide. And granting that the policies in place need to be to a greater degree thoroughly enforced and held to, then that may be what happens.”

The lass who died was one of two 16-year-olds found “unresponsive” at on all sides 3:30 a.m. Sunday in a barracks, a Fort Lewis prolocutor said Monday. The Lakes sophomore could not exist revived and was pronounced dead at the scene while the second miss remained hospitalized Tuesday at Madigan Army Medical Center. The dull girl showed no signs of physical trauma or other obvious indications of what may have caused her death, Piek said.

As of Tuesday evening, the names of the girls had not been released by means of family members or Fort Lewis, although post officials said neither was a member of a soldiers household. The dead girl had attended ninth grade at Lakes High, only withdrew last fall and took online classes, according to spokeswoman Kim Prentice of the Clover Park School District. Prentice declined to name the girl at the desire of the family.

She said the girl re-enrolled at Lakes this month and had been attending regular classes.

Prentice said the discipline brought in a “grief-response team” of counselors beneficial to any student or staff clause who needs them.

Students Joey Fitzpatrick and twin brothers Isiah and Joseph Alvarado described a subdued mood on campus Tuesday after students learned of the girl’s death.

“She was generally nice to people,” Joey Fitzpatrick said.

Some friends instructed condolences on the dead girl’s MySpace Web page. The tribe also posted a note, proverb they had few details about what happened.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008754987_fortlewis18m.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

LOS ANGELES

Researchers from the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits have merely begun extracting the fossils from the unstable, tarry matrix of bedaub, on the contrary they expect the light upon to double the size of the museum’sitting collection from the period, already the largest in the world.

Among their finds, to be formally announced today, is the nearly uninjured skeleton of a Columbian mammoth

But researchers are perhaps even more excited about discovery smaller fossils of tree trunks, turtles, snails, clams, millipedes, fish, gophers and even mats of oak leaves. The pristine excavators at La Brea threw in a puzzle uniform items in their haste to supply prized animal bones, and crucial information about the period was lost.

“This gives us the suitable to get a detailed picture of that which life was in the same manner as 10,000 to 40,000 years ago” in the Los Angeles Basin, uttered John Harris, chief curator at the Page. The find will make the museum “the major library of life in the Pleistocene frozen water age,” he said.

The team too is pioneering a new technique for extracting the fossils. Most paleontologists employ days to weeks carefully sifting from one side the daub at the site of a dig. In this case, however, huge chunks of soil from the site have been removed and now sit in large wooden crates on the back lot of the Page.

The Rancho La Brea area is a paleontological treasure chest. Petroleum from the underground oil fields oozed to the external part over the millenniums, forming bogs that trapped and killed unsuspecting animals and then preserved their skeletons. It is now a protected site.

Curators are excited about Zed because he appears to have existence about 80 percent complete, missing only one rear leg, a vertebra and the top of his skull, which was shaved off by excavation equipment.

Zed’s tusks furthermore are nearly intact

Zed’s sketch is now being cleaned in the museum’s “fishbowl” preparation room, and the team of paleontologists and volunteers so far has completed his jawbone and some vertebrae. He stood about 10 feet tall at the hip and was 47 to 49 years old. Mammoths normally lived to about 60, for a like reason he died prematurely.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008754997_fossils18.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

Bloodstream infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have dropped 50 percent in the last decade, at least for one high-risk medical procedure, according to a new study.

The finding, although limited to a separate performance in the intensive-care units (ICU) of hospitals surveyed

“This get by heart shows that at least in one facet of health-care-associated infections, things seem to be moving in the right direction, and that’s a good thing for patient security,” said study co-author Dr. John Jernigan, an epidemiologist at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Are we totality the way in that place yet? No.”

The study appears in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

MRSA catapulted to the general of the whole not private’s attention two years ago then infectious-disease experts estimated it causes 19,000 deaths a year and 85 percent of the infections are contracted in health-care settings.

A central line is a catheter, or tube, inserted into one of the main courage vessels conclusion to the heart. It is used to administer medications and overseer blood and heart pressures. Inserting this, and other devices, punctures the skin’s protective barrier and allow microbes that may be harmless in succession the external into areas where they can consideration harm.

The new reflect upon was drawn from data on central-line bloodstream infections reported freely to the CDC from more than 1,600 intensive care units.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008754613_mrsa18.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

CHICAGO

The Democratic senator’s comments came not so much than 24 hours subsequent to he acknowledged he sought to raise campaign funds for Blagojevich at the demand of the governor’s brother at the same time Burris was seeking the appointment to the Senate seat previously held through dint of. President Obama.

It was the first time Burris has publicly admitted trying to raise money concerning Blagojevich, and the word was the senator’s fifth version of his contacts with close associates of the maker governor. Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 and forced from office in tardily January over corruption allegations.

In comments to reporters after a Democratic dinner Monday night, the senator several times contradicted his latest under-oath affidavit that he quietly filed with the Illinois House impeachment panel this month. That affidavit was itself an attempt to clean up his feed, sworn testimony to the panel Jan. 8, when he omitted his contacts by several Blagojevich insiders.

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan called despite the Sangamon County accuser in Illinois to dissect Burris’ testimony at the statehouse in Springfield, and her inventor, House Speaker Michael Madigan, adhering Tuesday forwarded Burris’ testimony and affidavits to State’s Attorney John Schmidt.

In a brief report to reporters Tuesday in Peoria, Burris said an aide had reached out to the Sangamon County state’s attorney, who is reviewing testimony Burris gave last month to House lawmakers in Springfield about his contacts with allies of the ousted governor.

“I be in actual possession of made an effort to be since transparent as I can, and I’m willing to take a further few steps, as I have nothing to hide,” Burris aforesaid. “I welcome the opportunity to go before any one and every part of investigative bodies, including those referred by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the Senate Ethics Committee to answer any questions they have.”

The senator, who declined to answer questions, added, “There were never any inappropriate conversations between me and anyone else. And I will make answer any and every one of questions to get that point athwart to keep my faith through the citizens of Illinois.”

Schmidt said he received Burris’ two affidavits and a transcript of the testimony he gave the House impeachment panel from the speaker’sitting office. He said he may seek additional information and documents.

“We are in the train of reviewing them now,” said Schmidt, a Republican. “We started today when we received the documents.”

Republicans on Tuesday renewed their voice for Burris to resign, adding that the newest revelation that he attempted to raise funds for Blagojevich only magnified his untrustworthiness.

Democrats largely were quiet on the issue of Burris voluntarily leaving office, with Gov. Pat Quinn saying through each aide that it is a call only Burris can make.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008755001_burris180.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

The U.S. and China can begin cooperating on clean energy by co-funding a joint research and development center with shared intellectual property, creating tax-free “special energy zones” within cities to demonstrate new projects, and training a corps of energy-conservation auditors, participants in an international forum here said this week.

The U.S. China Clean Energy Forum wrapped up a week of meetings Tuesday, edging the two sides closer but without producing as many specific plans for action as some had hoped.

The two have been working together on energy issues for 30 years. Despite signing 42 agreements and producing 33,000 joint research projects, they’re now “in a worse situation than at the beginning of that relationship when it comes to energy and the environment,” said Seattle businessman Stanley Barer, the forum’s national co-chairman.

While participants talked about growing opportunities for future cooperation, particularly with $60 billion of the U.S. economic-stimulus package going toward clean energy, the talks also revealed what a daunting challenge they face.

Barriers include U.S. export controls, lack of intellectual-property protection in China and the elephant in the room: coal.

“Not one person in that room likes coal,” said Joseph Borich, president of the Washington State China Relations Council. “Coal is the ugly stepchild nobody wants to take responsibility for, and it’s probably the hardest issue to grapple with.”

China is building one new coal-fired power plant a week, and coal generates about 70 percent of its energy. The U.S. uses coal for about 23 percent of its energy, and so-called “clean coal” proposals have proved expensive and far off.

“With this downturn, we have even an bigger incentive to make investments in technology solutions to help get us off fossil fuels,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “In the near term, we have to reduce CO2 by using more renewables.”

China’s annual output of carbon dioxide has surpassed that of the United States. But on a cumulative basis, the U.S. has contributed close to 30 percent of the total, while China’s share is about 8 percent, said Gao Guangsheng, director general of the Climate Change Department in China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

Considering its huge population and fast-growing economy, “it’s naturally expected that China’s contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions will rapidly increase,” Gao said.

The visiting Chinese leaders, trying to assess the new political environment in Washington, D.C., saw support for cooperation, said Zha Daojiong, professor of international political economy at Peking University. In the past, the U.S. emphasis on national security “made spending federal government resources to assist energy development in China ideologically unacceptable,” Zha said.

The forum received letters of support from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change. Cantwell spoke to the group twice and sent a letter to President Obama signed by 14 other senators, urging him to establish a bilateral agreement with China on clean-energy cooperation.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008754781_chinaenergy18.html?syndication=rss

PHOENIX President Barack Obama’s plan to tackle the foreclosure crisis will spend $75 billion in an effort to prevent up to 9 a thousand thousand Americans from losing their homes.

Watch original video:

The contrivance, which Obama is releasing later Wednesday, is more aspiring than initially expected - and more expensive. It aims to support borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth, and borrowers who are on the confine of foreclosure.

The initiative is designed to help up to 5 million borrowers refinance, and provides incentive payments to mortgage lenders in an effort to support up to 4 very great number borrowers on the verge of foreclosure.

“All of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis,” Obama says in a prepared text of remarks scheduled quickly after 12 noon EST Wednesday at a Phoenix area high school.

Headlining the plan was a $75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative, under which would arrange incentives to lenders to divide monthly mortgage payments to sustainable levels. It defines this at not one more than 31 percent of a homeowners income.

Another key component part: a new program aimed at helping homeowners said to be “under water” - with dwellings whose set a high value on have sunk on the earth the principal still owing on their mortgages. Such mortgages have traditionally been almost inconceivable to refinance. But the White House said its program will help 4 to 5 million families do just that.

Announcing his plan in a narrate hard chance by the housing crunch, Obama aforesaid that stemming the tide of foreclosures is key to turning around the recession-bound economy.

“In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home pledge crisis. And all of us will pay an uniform steeper price if we spare this crisis to deepen,” he said, according to the advance text.

The plan also seeks to bolster self-reliance in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants effectively taken over by the government last year. The White House said the Treasury will greaten its funding commitment to the brace using money Congress set out of the straight course endure year, and will go on purchasing mortgage-backed securities from them.

The biggest players in the mortgage industry even now had halted foreclosures unsettled Obama’s announcement.

The president’s announcement was coming a sunshine after he signed into law a $787 billion economic provocation plan he hopes resolution spark an economic turnaround and create or deducting 3.5 million jobs.

In a ceremony at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, he hailed the plan’s spending on green technology, teaching and health care, as well as badly needed repair of roads and bridges, and said those, plus middle-class tax cuts, represent the “essential work of custody the American fancy alive in our time.”

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008755392_apobamahomeforeclosures.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

You may not know it to look at them, but urban planners are human and have dreams. One dream crowd share is that Americans will bestow up their love affair with suburban sprawl and will rediscover denser, more environmentally friendly, less auto-dependent ways of living.

Those dreams have been aroused completely the past few months. The household crisis has devastated the fast-growing developments on the far suburban fringe. Americans taste the bitter fruit of their overconsumption.

The opportunity has come, some writers are predicting, at the time Americans power of determination as the final move feel remorse. They’ll move back to the urban core. They will ride more bicycles, have smaller homes and tinier fridges and rediscover the joys of dense community

America will, in abruptly, finally begin to consider a little more like Amsterdam.

Well, Amsterdam is a wonderful city, but Americans never seem to want to live there. And exactly at once, in this moment of chastening pain, they don’confidentially seem to want the Dutch option.

The Pew Research Center just finished a study about where Americans would allied to live and what sort of lifestyle they would like to have. The first thing they construct is that even in dark times, Americans are still looking over the next horizon. Nearly half of those surveyed said they would rather live in a different type of community from the one they are living in at present.

Second, Americans still want to move outward. City dwellers are least happy with where they endure, and cities are one of the least popular places to last. Only 52 percent of urbanites rate their communities “excellent” or “very agreeable,” compared with 68 percent of suburbanites and 71 percent of the people who live in rural America.

Cities remain sweet to the young. Forty-five percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 would like to live in New York City. But cities are profoundly unattractive to people with families and to the somewhat old. Only 14 percent of Americans 35 and older are selfish in living in New York City. Only 8 percent of people over 65 are drawn to Los Angeles.

Third, Americans soft neglect to go west. The researchers at Pew asked Americans what metro areas they would like to live in. Seven of the top 10 were in the West: Denver, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Portland and Sacramento. The other three were in the South: Orlando, Tampa and San Antonio. Eastern cities were etc. the list and Midwestern cities were at the bottom.

Finally, Americans want to go someplace unused. The powerhouse cities of the 20th hundred

In abrupt, Americans may indeed be glum and hunkered down. But they’re still Americans. They are still drawn to virgin ground, still restless against limits.

If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas

These are places (leave out for Orlando) where spectacular natural scenery is visible from medium-density residential neighborhoods, where the boundary betwixt suburb and incorporated town is hard to find. These are places with loose friendly structures and relative neighborly evenness, without the Ivy League standing system of the Northeast or the star structure of L.A. These places are car-dependent and spread out, but they also have strong cultural identities and pedestrian meeting places. They offer at least the ground of friendlier neighborhoods, slower lifestyles and service-sector employment. They are neither traditional urban centers nor atomized suburban sprawl. They are not, exclude for Seattle, especially ideological, sapient or red.

They offer the dream, in this way special put on this continent, of having it all: the puppet and the garden. The wide-open space and the casual wardrobes.

The folks at Pew asked human being other interesting interrogation: Would you rather live in a common through a McDonald’s or a Starbucks? McDonald’sitting won, of course, but by a surprisingly small margin: 43 percent to 35 percent. And that, too, captures the irremedicable nature of American culture, a culture slowly refining itself through espresso but still in love by the drive-through.

The results may not satisfy those who dream of Holland, but there’s one other impressive be the effect from the Pew survey. Americans may be lowering and afraid, but they still have a clear supernatural appearance of the good life. That’s one commodity never in short supply.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008753883_opinb18brooks.html?syndication=rss

Watch original video:

On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court uttered the incorporated township of New London, Conn., could take Susette Kelo’s house. A city-sponsored agency had a plan because of condos, a hotel and research labs for Pfizer Inc., and Kelo’sitting house was in the way. Taking her house was in the place of the public useful, the city said, and a majority of the Supreme Court agreed.

When you lose at the Supreme Court, you’re supposed to give up. But in America, the Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter. The the community is.

Susette Kelo and her lawyers didn’privately give up. They went to the press. They went to political groups. They took the issue to the states, and law has been changed in in addition than 40 of them. Thus is conquest snatched from the wrecking round of discomfiture.

The story of how that was done is told in a new work, “Little Pink House,” written by Jeff Benedict, who covered the Kobe Bryant rape case for Sports Illustrated. Benedict was in town last week along through Kelo, the star of his part.

Her willingness to not give an inch “that woman adhering the perplex,” she told me

In 1998, she bought a small, old house that was within sniffing range of a sewage settle. It require to be paid $56,000 and she defended it all the street to the Supreme Court.

Her law firm, the donor-supported Institute for Justice, represented her because it liked her cause and her toughness. It charged her nothing. Its goal was not to get her other money for her house, though in the close it did. Its goal was to beat the government, thereby changing the order that allows property takings for “economic development.”

The Bill of Rights says government have power to take property “for public use.” Originally, that meant things that are owned by the public or that had a public obligation, like a power line. But over the years, the definition expanded. “Public use” became thought of as the world benefit.

New London argued that private research labs, condos and a hotel were a “general body of mankind use” as they increased task revenue and jobs. By that standard, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor famously pointed out, government could take your put under cover for a shopping mall because the beetle would liquidate more taxes than you. You’d be paid for your public-house, end you’d have to sell it.

Which brings us to Washington. Our state constitution says, with a few exceptions, that private property “shall not be taken for private practice.” That sounds real tough, but the state redevelopment law neuters it. The get in front of of the Institute for Justice’s Seattle office, William Maurer, says the law allows property to be taken if an area suffers from “blight,” and it allows “blight” to include almost anything.

Attorney General Rob McKenna says the law “clearly allows takings for private redevelopment,” though in his view the state constitution forbids it.

Following the Kelo case, McKenna formed a employment vigor on the law of takings, and he expects it to propose a much tighter definition of “blight.”

Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, has a related bill that would give owners the right to buy in a backward direction. \ property taken but not used within seven years

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008753858_opina18ramsey.html?syndication=rss